How well do you think your business is doing when it comes to shipping? Can you prove it? Could you perform even better? Too many businesses stumble here – late deliveries erode trust, high costs shrink margins, and unhappy customers don’t return. By setting up and measuring key performance indicators (KPIs), you can answer these questions with hard data, not guesswork.
The real challenge isn’t just delivering packages, it’s diagnosing why delays happen (is it carrier bottlenecks or poor warehouse routing?), why shipping costs creep up (overpriced carriers or misaligned rates?), and why customers complain (missed expectations or damaged goods?). Tracking shipping KPIs lets you pinpoint these root causes, not just treat symptoms like low satisfaction scores.
Plus, it reveals opportunities to cut costs, streamline processes, and deliver on time, building a competitive edge in a world where Amazon’s same-day delivery sets the bar. By becoming more data-driven with your decision making, you can scale your operations based on past trends and discuss how to optimise your carrier performance in accordance with their delivery history.
Let’s check out 9 critical shipping KPI examples and how they work together to turn insights into action.
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What monitoring shipping KPIs can do for your business
Collecting reliable shipping data is about solving real problems that hit your bottom line and your brand reputation. Late deliveries, for example, drive around 20% of customers to competitors, while inefficient processes – like under-staffed warehouses or issues with customs – waste resources. Monitoring shipping KPIs helps you:
Improve delivery performance
Which carriers are best with dangerous goods? Why are rural deliveries delayed? By tracking your on-time delivery rate you can ensure customers are getting orders on time and not chasing your customer support team for status updates.
Optimise operational costs
Are carriers overcharging for slow service? Are checkout rates too low, eating into profits? This data will help you find the sweet spot between attractive pricing for customers and sustainable margins for your business.
Enhance customer experience
What do customers pick the most – cheap shipping or speed? Can you offer same-day delivery? Tracking preferences and feedback cuts through assumptions, letting you match delivery to demand. This builds trust, not just ‘experience,’ because reliable shipping sticks in customers’ minds.
Boost operational efficiency
Do heavy items slow down your warehouse? Do your packages get stuck in customs? By pinpointing bottlenecks, you can improve your processes to pick, pack and send with efficiency – identifying and fixing causes like poor inventory flow, not just ‘low productivity’.
Support business growth
If you’re looking to expand into a new area or open another location, tracking shipping KPIs to analyse past delivery trends can help. By reviewing previous experience, you can minimise potential disruptions ahead of time and ensure you’re scaling into a region that you can service with your current resources.
Core shipping KPI examples every business should track
No matter what you’re sending and where it’s going, there’s a set of shipping KPIs that every business needs to monitor. They’re not a one-size-fits-all fix – your context (e.g. product type, market) will determine their priority and how they fit together.
1. On-time delivery rate
There’s a reason this is listed first. The main thing your customers care about is receiving their order on time, especially if they’ve paid a premium price for express or same-day delivery options. A good stat to track for this shipping KPI is the percentage of orders delivered on time.
Some people in the industry will use the acronym “DIFOT” which stands for “delivered in-full, on time”. The distinction here is that the whole order arrived on time, as opposed to a partial order containing the pieces in stock. Late or incomplete deliveries spike support queries and refunds. By delivering orders on time and with nothing missing, you can cut down on time-consuming order tracking queries.
Starshipit tip: Most of your carrier partners should be tracking these numbers too, so make sure to ask about it when negotiating contracts. With Starshipit’s carrier analytics dashboards you can track key shipping KPIs with easy-to-read reports to ensure you’re getting the service you’re paying for.
2. Order accuracy rate
On time delivery doesn’t mean much when the customer’s address is incorrect. We recommend tracking the order accuracy rate to catch missed deliveries – each one costs time (support calls) and money (reshipping or a refund). A 2% error rate might sound small, but for 1000 orders, that’s 20 angry customers. This KPI ties directly to trust, a bedrock of brand strength.
3. Average delivery time (or transit time)
This is a measure of the full time it takes for a package to be delivered; from the time it leaves your warehouse with a carrier to the time it arrives at the customer’s doorstep. Tracking your average delivery time is essential for understanding if you’re able to meet customer expectations, as express shipping options from major online retailers have raised the standard.
Average delivery time can also help you assess carrier performance and see if they’re meeting their delivery estimates regularly. If not, some changes you could make include partnering with other carriers to add flexibility or looking into options like in-store fulfilment, so your inventory is closer to its end destination.
Starshipit tip: Use the built-in Average Transit Time metric in Starshipit’s shipping reports to assess the performance of the carriers you’re working with and see what potential there is for further optimisation.
4. Shipping cost per order
Cost per order isn’t just about savings – it's about tradeoffs. By monitoring how much you’re spending, you’re better positioned to understand if you can expand into a new region or offer deals like free shipping on orders over a certain value.
When assessing cost per order, it’s important to look at data from a range of criteria including what each carrier costs, how prices differ based on the shipping zone or region, and how different service levels, like same-day delivery, impact the final price. High costs might justify a premium service if it cuts returns; low costs might help hide delays – data should decide, not intuition.
5. Return rate
As shipping KPIs go, tracking your return rate is a great indicator of how the online presentation of your products is faring. The lower your return rate, the better your team is working to meet your customers’ expectations.
On top of the number of packages being returned, we recommend recording the reason for each one, so you know which part of the process isn’t working as well as it could.
Damaged packages, incorrect items and sizing issues are some of the most common reasons for returns. Tracking these metrics will help you identify where in the eCommerce process problems may arise, so you can fix the root cause instead of providing temporary solutions.
6. Pending orders
Which KPIs can be measured prior to orders leaving your warehouse? Pending orders is a shipping KPI that can help you plan for inventory restocks and ensure you have enough product to ship orders in the timelines customers expect. It also reinforces the importance of an integrated inventory management system to avoid situations where customers are ordering stock that you don’t have on hand.
Starshipit tip: The Pending Orders Count metric is useful for highlighting any potential bottlenecks in your fulfilment process and gives clear data on areas that need improvement. Investigate if your tech stack is setup correctly with your team and account managers.
Shipping KPIs that improve carrier performance
Another great way to use shipping insights is to measure the performance of your carriers. These KPIs assess their role in your success, helping you choose which ones to keep, cut, or use more. Below are some shipping KPI examples that you can use to assess the relationship with carriers to see what’s working and what isn’t.
7. Carrier utilisation breakdown
Are you over-relying on one carrier? You might have a sense of which carriers are responsible for the majority of your shipping, but monitoring the data and tracking the exact proportions will give you a much clearer picture. This will show if you’re missing out on potential cost savings by spreading order types out across all carrier services and options.
Starshipit tip: Check your Carrier Breakdown metric in Starshipit to maintain a balance between all the carriers you work with. This will help you discover where there are options for bulk discounts or other optimisations.
8. Carrier performance score or carrier scorecard
What if you wanted to assess the overall performance of your carriers? That’s an option too. The ideal carrier performance scores are made up of a selection of the shipping KPIs mentioned above, specifically:
- On-time delivery rates
- Damage rates
- Transit times
These are combined to provide a weighted score highlighting the overall performance of your carrier partners. This score is particularly important to track when contracts are up for renewal or if you’re looking to expand your service to a new region and want to see which carriers have been working well for your brand.
9. Shipping cost vs. carrier performance
Finally, it’s important to understand how to measure cost as a KPI for shipping. The price on its own isn’t always an accurate reflection of value, so we recommend balancing the delivery cost with other measures of carrier performance. We suggest comparing cost efficiency with the quality of the service you’re receiving.
For example, if you’re working with a carrier offering cheaper rates, are these still meeting on-time delivery metrics? What’s their accuracy rate? On the other hand, premium carriers may be harder to justify if you’re just looking at the cost, but when compared to their enhanced delivery offerings and reliable performance, they might actually be worth the investment. Some businesses even decide to absorb carrier rates into their business costs in order to work with more reputable carriers.
Starshipit tip: The ‘Shipping Cost by Carrier’ metric in Starshipit makes it easy to analyse price trends across all your shipping, so you can negotiate better rates and understand your spending.
Using a shipping KPI dashboard and automation
Measuring your shipping KPIs doesn’t just have to be a retroactive process involving you running through a series of complex self-generated reports at the end of each month. The right shipping fulfilment platform will give you access to a shipping KPI dashboard and allow you to track the essential metrics we’ve described above.
Viewing shipping KPIs in real time can help when you’ve just launched a product, or you partnered with a new carrier and want to ensure these changes haven’t disrupted your operations. Keeping real-time tabs on order accuracy rate and pending orders will help keep your mind at ease and give a clear indication of how your fulfilment processes are functioning.
You can improve your shipping KPIs even further with smart use of automation. For example, you might set up rules to assign products to either the cheapest or fastest carrier depending on what’s best for the customer. Or you might want difficult products like dangerous goods to all be assigned to a premium carrier to avoid a higher return rate. By revisiting your shipping KPIs after adding new automation rules, you can check they’re having the intended effect and look for more opportunities to improve your processes or automate even more of your shipping fulfilment.
Starshipit tip: Use Starshipit’s shipping KPI dashboard to get end-to-end visibility on your fulfilment process and make data-driven decisions based on real-world performance.
Export your data with a shipping KPI excel template
What if you need to share the data from your shipping KPIs with other key decision makers? Exporting data with a shipping KPI excel template can make it easier to search and sift through the different metrics you’re monitoring. We recommend using an excel template to:
- Analyse shipping KPIs like on-time delivery rates, shipping costs and carrier performance.
- Identify trends and make decisions based on data, not assumptions.
- Spot inefficiencies and in order fulfilment and carrier usage to make the best use of your available resources.
By making data readable and easy to understand, you can influence key decision makers to the best choice for your shipping needs.
Starshipit tip: Use Starshipit’s shipping KPI excel template to easily export and review your shipping data, helping you refine your strategy and improve logistics efficiency.
Next steps: Turning shipping insights into action
Now that you’re familiar with the types of shipping KPIs you should be measuring, it’s time to turn these insights into action. To make the most out of metrics like on-time delivery and return rates, you need to monitor them regularly. If you make any changes to your fulfilment process, compare and contrast the new data with the old to ensure you’ve achieved the desired result and can see a tangible improvement. This type of continuous progress can help you save money, ship more efficiently, and, most importantly, deliver a better customer experience.
If you want to take this to the next level, utilise key features of your shipping fulfilment platform like automation, analytics dashboards and carrier comparisons. They're designed to help you refine shipping processes and free up extra resources in your business by automatically assigning products to certain carriers or making it clear which ones are performing.
To see how measuring shipping KPIs can impact your business, start your Starshipit journey with a 30-day free trial and discover how you can make better decisions with accurate data.
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Kimberley Hughes
Kimberley is Starshipit's Content Marketing Lead. Her days are filled with creative storytelling and innovative content strategies. Off the clock, she's an all-seasons iced coffee fan, a Catan strategist, and skincare explorer. For a peek into her world, find her on LinkedIn.
